He looked at her and put his hand over hers on the ground between them. “I don’t care about that anymore really.”
“You don’t?”
He shrugged. “Not really. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things since that night in the bar with you.”
“Oh, Chris, I didn’t mean to…”
“No.” He turned to her and put one finger on her lips to quiet her. The touch sent electricity through her, and she melted inside. She pulled in a quick breath. “I mean, I have been living a certain way, Wren. And…well, since meeting you, even though we didn’t seem to hit it off at first…I’ve had a change of heart. I…I want to do things differently from now on. And I…I want to do them with you.”
She swallowed. She wanted the same thing.
“I…I want to be with you, too, Chris. You…you aren’t who I thought. I’d…like to get to know you a lot better.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Wren.”
When he leaned in close to her and pressed his lips against hers, it was as if shock waves flowed through her body. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around him, kissing him back. It would be the first of many, she knew, and that thought was enough to make her feel as if the hard ground under them was replaced with a soft cloud. It was a beautiful beginning of a beautiful relationship.
*****
THE END
YOUNG ADULT PARANORMAL Romance - Gifted
Chapter One
Amber walked down the hallway with her head down. The last thing she wanted was to look into the eyes of her classmates. As an empath, whatever they were feeling, she would feel. She had lived with the ability all her life and was still learning to control it. The beat of the music in her ears soothed her somewhat because it blocked out words that filled her mind as she walked past the other students. She couldn’t exactly hear their thoughts. But the words they said revealed their feelings to her in even stronger waves than usual.
Even with the headphones on, she could feel waves of sadness, joy, lust, greed and anger flowing past her like a cold breeze. She wished she could be homeschooled but, with her parents’ schedule, that simply wasn’t possible.
She tried to stroll casually into her first class, knowing the look on her face would give her away if she looked at anyone in particular. She kept her eyes on the floor, walking to her desk and sliding into the chair, pushing her backpack in between her legs and holding it there as if someone might try to snatch it from her.
The bell rang not long after she sat down, and she was somewhat relieved. The distraction of schoolwork took her mind off the emotions she felt around her. She had no friends to entertain her, no boyfriend to count on, no counselor she could vent to. She was aware of her lonely existence and preferred it that way.
Halfway through the class, she felt an abrupt change in the atmosphere around her. Suddenly, her heart was racing, and her mind was in chaos. She gasped and put one hand on her chest, leaning forward over her desk.
“Amber?” Her teacher turned from the dry erase board, looking at her through narrow eyes. His face turned to concern when he saw that she had lost all the color in her face and was as white as a sheet. “Amber? Are you all right?”
She tried to breathe, looking up at him through pleading eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kinney. I…I don’t feel good all of a sudden. I…I think I’m going to throw up.” She didn’t really feel like vomiting. Her senses were storming through her mind, and her body was tingling with electricity. “I…I need to…”
“Go on to the nurse.” Mr. Kinney grabbed a notepad from his desk and scrawled something on the pad for her. He ripped it off and practically threw it at her. She stumbled out of her desk, grabbed the paper and headed for the door, barely able to see.
After she was through the door, one of her classmates stood up and grabbed her bag from under the desk. “All right if I take this to her, Mr. Kinney? She looked like she might not make it to the nurse.”
Mr. Kinney jotted another note and gave it to him, nodding. “Yes, Quinton, make sure she’s okay. Come back once she is with the nurse.”
“Thanks!” He took the note and followed Amber out the door.
He didn’t have to go far. Amber had not made it to the nurse. In fact, she wasn’t heading for the nurse’s office. She was heading for the front door.
“Amber!” He tried not to call out her name too loudly because someone may have noticed and come out to find out what was going on. Students weren’t allowed in the hallways between classes, much less yelling. Amber didn’t seem to hear him. She continued to stumble toward the doors, both hands out to push it open when she reached it.
Quint glanced to the side, but the desk where the security guard usually sat was empty. He thought that was strange. There was almost always someone there to make sure no one came in with weapons or that looked suspicious.
He bolted down the hallway to catch up with her and reached her with just enough time to push the door open and grab one of her arms.
“Amber, are you okay? Where are you going? Are you leaving school? Shouldn’t you go to the nurse?”
When she looked at him, Amber’s green eyes had filled with tears, and red rings had appeared around them as if she had already been crying for hours. “Something’s wrong.” She gasped. “Oh, something is really, really wrong. I gotta get home. I gotta get home.” She began to sob, and he held her up as they moved out the door.
“I have my car. I’ll take you home. Come on; it’s this way.”
She continued to cry as Quint drove her away from the school. She was able to breathe out directions to him “turn here…that way…to the left…”
Ten minutes later, Quint was pulling onto the street Amber lived on when he slammed on the brakes. “Oh no.” He said breathlessly. The street was filled with emergency vehicles from police to ambulances to fire engines. One of the houses to the right in the middle of the street was engulfed in flames that licked the sky and the tops of the trees around it dangerously. He looked at Amber with wide eyes.
“Tell me that’s not your house, Amber. Oh, please tell me that’s not your house.”
Amber’s tears came full force now. He didn’t need an answer from her. He pulled over to the side of the road, scooted over to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Amber. I’m so sorry. Was anyone there?”
“My…my parents…my mom and…dad.” She sobbed into his chest, and he held her tightly.
“Oh my God.” He pressed his face down into her hair and kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God. Maybe they weren’t home. Maybe they’re okay.”
Amber felt his sorrow emanating through her body, compounding her own. It was almost too much to bear. Her parents were gone. She knew it was a fact. She couldn’t feel them anymore. The feelings of love they had for her was gone. She shook her head vigorously.
“No…no…they were home…”
When she had cried for a time, Quint released her from his grip and put his hands under her chin so that she had to look at him. Her eyes were nearly closed, swollen by her tears and her pain.
“I’m going to take you to my house, Amber. You don’t need to be talking to those police officers right now.”
She nodded without answering, and he scooted back to get behind the wheel once more. He turned the car around and sped off in the other direction without hesitation.
He pulled up in his driveway, slammed on the brakes and threw the car into park. He was out of his door and pulling hers open before she had time to do it herself. He reached in and helped Amber out as if she was injured, practically carrying her up the walk and onto the front porch. He still had his keys in his hand, and he unlocked the door quickly, directing her over the threshold.
He closed the door behind him and helped her into the living room, where they sat on a big fluffy yellow couch decorated with red and purple flowers. Amber sank down in the cushion. She had stopped crying and was beginning to feel numb, a feeling she rarely felt. If it wasn’t her ow
n emotions she was feeling, it was usually someone else’s.
One good thing about being an empath was that she knew who she could trust. She knew that Quint’s concern was genuine. His touch began to comfort her, instead of hurt her, as was most often the case when people put their hands on her. She took his hand, allowing him to put his other arm around her shoulders.
“What do you think happened, Amber? How did you know your house was on fire?”
She caught a moment of suspicion in his feelings. He thought for just a second that she knew about it, that it had been planned by her. But then the suspicion was gone as he decided that there was no way. She was relieved.
She swallowed and wiped her eyes with her hands, the fleeting thought that her mascara was probably all over her face running through her mind. As if he read her thoughts, Quint stood up and crossed the room, bringing back a box of tissues from the bookshelf. She used several to wipe her face and blow her nose.
“I…I get feelings. Sometimes…I just know when something is wrong.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
She didn’t think he really did. No one did. There were only a few other empaths in the entire nation that she knew of.
“Thank you for…helping me.” Her throat hurt from crying so hard, and she had a pounding headache. She tried to draw strength from his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s my pleasure to help you, Amber. I could tell something was really wrong back there, at the school I mean. I felt like you were going to need someone.”
“Other than the nurse.”
“Yes, other than the nurse.”
“I’m…very sensitive to feelings. I feel what other people feel all the time. It’s…it can be very uncomfortable.”
“You mean like an empath?”
Her eyes darted to his face. How did he know about empaths?
“Yes.” She answered, feeling that she could trust him. “How…how did you come to that conclusion? I only said I’m sensitive to people’s feelings.”
Quint ventured a gentle smile. “I have been…watching you for a while now. I felt like you might need protection.”
“And you’re the one to do it, huh?”
He nodded. “I kind of felt like that, yeah.”
“Why would you? I mean, why would you bother to offer me protection. You don’t even know me.”
He looked away from her and pulled in a deep breath. “Well, actually, our parents do…I mean, did know each other. They…they belong to the same club, I guess you could say.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Amber was completely confused, staring at him and wondering why she couldn’t get a sense of his deeper feelings. In fact, she sensed she was being blocked from her normal abilities as if she was running up against a brick wall over and over.
“There is this…club, a group of people. They are all parents of children with special abilities.”
Shock ran through her, giving her chills up and down her arms and the back of her neck. Her eyes widened and she stared at him. “What? What…what…”
He laughed softly. “What do I do?”
She nodded.
“I am an SB. Not to be confused with an SOB.”
That made her smile. “I don’t know what that is.”
“I can block senses. I can block other people from feeling my sense. Like what you do. I can block that. I can put a protection block around someone else so that their feelings can’t be picked up on, as well. That’s why our parents were friends. Because you sense what other people feel, and I can block that power. Our parents were worried about something bad happening. I think they were planning something. I don’t know what. But I’m pretty sure something was going on that we didn’t know anything about.”
“So you knew about my power already?”
“I did, but I didn’t really get involved in anything that my parents were doing. I just knew about it. I take it your parents didn’t fill you in on what they were doing.”
She shook her head. “Not with that…group of people you’re talking about. The club. But I do know they have a lab in the basement, and I know what they were working on.”
Quint frowned. “Do you think their research is what got…what caused the fire in some way?”
She nodded this time. “And I don’t think their experiments caused the fire. I think someone found out. Someone killed them.”
Quint was about to answer when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out and stared at the screen. “It’s the police.”
Chapter Two
“Hello?”
When Quint answered his phone, Amber looked around for her backpack. She realized they had left it in the car, and her cell phone was in there. She jumped up from the couch, listening to Quint speaking into his phone.
“Yes, she’s with me.” He stood up and mouthed to her that he was coming with her, gesturing to himself and then her and then the front door. She nodded. He followed her out the door quickly. “Yes, she’s all right. She wanted to go home instead of the nurse’s so I…yes, we saw what happened. I brought her to my house to calm…yes, I thought it was best to…okay. Yeah, all right.”
He pressed the button on the screen of his phone to hang up. “They want us to go back to your house right away. The police want to talk to you. Mr. Kinney told them I was going to help you go to the nurse, and they assumed we both left the building instead.”
“They’re going to think I started the fire.”
Quint shook his head, taking Amber’s hand and looking directly in her eyes. “No, they won’t, Amber. You left in a panicked state, not one of anger or determination. And the fire started over an hour ago. We were both sitting in class at that time. You have nothing to worry about when it comes to being accused.”
“They’re going to think I asked someone to start it. They are going to put the suspicion and the blame on me. I just know it.”
“Is that one of your empathic feelings or are you letting your guilt talk for you?”
She gave him a soft look. “You’re too wise for your age, Quint.”
He pressed his lips together. “I don’t want you to get too worked up, Amber. You have enough pain to deal with from losing your parents. I can’t believe you’ve even stopped crying.”
Just his words made her eyes fill up with tears. “I won’t stop crying for years, maybe the rest of my life.” She whispered. “It’s just nobody will be able to see them.”
He stood with her just outside the door to his car and cupped her face with his hands. “I’m going to help you, Amber. My parents and I will help you.”
She thought for a moment that he was going to kiss her. She wouldn’t have minded. But he didn’t. He pulled her into a hug and held her for a moment. Then he released her and reached down to pull the door open.
As they drove back to Amber’s house, they were both quiet. She had covered her mouth with both hands and was looking down at her lap, running the morning scene through her mind. Her parents were alive, vibrant, happy. They had been a loving couple all their lives, still hugging, kissing and telling each other “I love you” every day.
She tried not to cry, but tears were streaming down her face, over her hands. She could feel Quint’s sorrow for her and knew that he was not blocking himself from her. She wondered if his sorrow was so strong that it was making its way through his normal block.
The closer they got to her house, the more emotions she felt, not from him but from the crowd of people at the scene. Most of her neighbors who were home at the time were standing on the sidewalk, watching what was happening. By the time they got there, the fire had been put out, and an empty shell remained. The upper half of the house was completely gone. The inside had been gutted by the fire. Half the stair case was still standing, jutting up higher than what was left of the exterior walls. Everything was black.
Firefighters wandered around the scene. She could see two bodies in body bags being lifted into the back of one of the
ambulances. The sight made her burst into tears again. Quint reached over and ran his hand over the back of her lowered head.
“Be strong.” He whispered. “Be strong.”
He pulled up two houses away and parked the car on the side of the road. Once again, he got out and rounded the car to pull her door open. He held out one hand to her.
She took it and lifted herself out, wrapping her arms around his waist as support so they could walk the rest of the way to where the police and other people were waiting. She heard the sounds of sorrow and mournful calls coming from the neighbors who saw her walking to the scene. She felt Quint look over at them, but she didn’t and couldn’t call out to them. She pressed her face into Quint’s chest and let his concern wash over her.
He squeezed her against him. “Be strong.” He whispered again. She was so glad he didn’t say “it’s going to be okay.” It was never going to be okay.
“Miss Amber Price?” One of the policemen approached them. She nodded without taking her face away from Quint’s chest. The policeman reached out to touch her arm. She felt a jolt of energy when he made contact, and she tried desperately not to pull away. He was unhappy, a sad man who probably felt the pain she was feeling sometime in his past. He had definitely lost someone important to him at some point. She didn’t want to know the details.
“I’m so sorry about this, Miss Price. I understand how you feel.”
Amber felt Quint’s disapproval of the police officer’s words but she herself nodded. She knew he did understand.
“You’ve been at school all morning?”
“Yes, sir.” She said softly, pulling away from Quint slightly and looking directly at the officer. He was taller than her, with cropped red hair and a long, sharp face. His eyes betrayed how kind he was inside.
“Did you know your parents would be here today?”
“My parents are always here. They don’t do work anywhere else. They have a business here.”
“What do they do?”
“They’re writers. They write stuff for Veterinarian magazines and stuff like that.”
Romance: Teen Romance: Follow Your Dreams (A Nerd and a Bad Boy Romance) (New Adult High School Sports Romance) Page 73